


But in Dreams

by Melusine11



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Dreams and Nightmares, Dreamsharing, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Ghost Luke Skywalker, Hopeful Ending, Mild spoilers at the end for trailer footage, Speculation, This is inspired by the Kylo Comic #2 information that we just got
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 12:27:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21161654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melusine11/pseuds/Melusine11
Summary: Rey attempts to close the bond between her and Kylo, but her subconscious has other ideas, letting them both wander into each other's dreams. They've been in each other's minds before, but that's nothing compared to the way dreams and nightmares can split you open.





	But in Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> This is, I'm not sure what I would call this, other than it needed out of my brain after seeing the Kylo comic information this morning. Which you can find [here](https://twitter.com/StarWarsExplain/status/1187398670678986752) if you want to check it out and haven't seen it yet.

She can keep him out while she’s awake, dividing her attention between keeping her walls up, keeping him out and running all over the galaxy with Rose and Chewie and their ever-growing flock of porgs.

When she sleeps though, that’s something else entirely.

Sometimes she sees him, looking ragged and pacing a room that is fuzzy around the shape of him. Other times she sees him, possibly in meetings, looking tired and bored, cheek resting against his fist. He never acknowledges her, and she always remains as still as possible when it happens.

It’s when they manage to share a day/night cycle that things become unwieldy. They’ve been in each other’s minds, but the things they reveal to each other here- she hates how she cannot control it, is only aware after she is awake.

She has nightmares she gets lost in the desert, she has dreams of happy days, of things that never happened, she dreams about Porgs and the Force and the island in an ocean. She’s always looking for something there, but she doesn’t know what anymore. No one is left for her there except for the fish nuns who hate her.

Through it all, she can sense him there, observing from the fringes, eager to comfort but he never does.

For a long time it’s only her dreamscapes they visit, she wonders if it’s because she’s sleeping first. But then she falls into his dreams, his nightmares. She can’t stop them, even if she wanted to. _It’s fair_, some distant part of her mind supplies _he’s had his turn, and now it’s hers._

She sees him as a child, so small, and Han is there, so young. A golden chain tangled up in tiny hands. They’re in the familiar space of the cockpit in the Falcon, Ben is in the copilot’s chair, fiddling with the chain and dice while he stares attentively at Han, explaining the purpose of each button and switch one by one.

She sees him still just as small, looking even smaller as he catches a ride on Chewbacca’s shoulders. They’re running through the streets of a market in a city she’s never seen before. Bens fingers are tangled in the Wookiee’s fur, hair blowing back from his hair as he laughs.

A lonely, broken boy, huddled in his bedroom, listening to a fight about him. He has this dream a lot. Sometimes it changes, sometimes he creeps from his room and the fighting stops, sometimes it dissolves completely - she always guesses he wakes up on those nights.

She sees flashes of Snoke, listens to the things he tells Ben. _Useless. Weak. A disgrace. He would disappoint Vader. He was nothing._ She’s glad Kylo killed him because she would do it herself if she could.

In the morning she has to grapple with that. Listens to Poe and Finn chat over breakfast, drag Rose and Connix into the conversation, while her mind turns over truths she had been trying to ignore. Her eyes prick with the beginnings of tears and she blinks hard. She wishes-

The dreams she hates the most are the ones where she watches their last fight. Sees it all from his perspective. Her tears, her fear. Some nights it’s the same impassioned plea for her to stay, other nights he says other things, says things that might have made her stay, abandons it all and comes with her.

The nights he gets trapped in a cycle of reuniting with Leia only to encounter her wrath and hate always leave her feeling distressed come morning. So she sneaks into the General’s chambers for breakfast and they talk about plans and new recruits and reunions and forgiveness. And Rey worries, because of the way sadness lingers in Leia’s eyes, the tangible grief that lingers. She misses her brother, and husband and most of all, her son.

“Luke told me no one’s ever really gone,” Leia sighs one morning when Rey trudges through her doors, balancing a tray of caf and pastries.

“You know, we spent eighteen years of our lives not even knowing about one another, and even after we found one another we were always on different paths, but I knew him, could always feel his presence, almost like a warm hug until one day I couldn’t. I spent years without him, I missed him terribly, but he had disappeared and so had my son and I had always wondered...he still won’t talk about it. I still blame Snoke, but part of me wants the closure of knowing what happened between them.”

“Luke?” Rey asks, frowning now. “You talk to him?”

“Sometimes, when he decides to visit. He’s more obnoxious as a force ghost, can’t leave him in a room when I want to walk away, just follows me around.” She chuckles. “Won’t even let me properly end an argument anymore.”

Luke hasn’t been to visit her, which is just as well, she’s twisted up about him. Annoyed that he refused to help her, mad that he was the final piece to break - drove Ben into the arms of Snoke. Sad that he’s already gone after only just meeting him; and through it all a current of joy that he did find peace and purpose and opened himself back up to the Force. 

It’s nearly an entire standard month before she’s not alone in her dreams once more. Things have been quiet, but she can’t help the growing sense of unease that fills her every morning she wakes up. Something is coming, happening, but she doesn’t know what. Her dreams are a disjointed mess and she’s worried she should be getting some sort of message through them, but none of it makes sense.

Then, one night, she’s somewhere foreign and familiar all at once. He looks peaceful, she muses, taking in his sleeping face before her eyes notice the things on the small table beside him. She knows these items, had glanced at them briefly when she pushed her way into his mind when he had tried to capture her. She wonders if he still practices, surely being the supreme leader means he has the budget to spend on expensive parchments and inks. His silver saber glints in the moonlight and she creeps closer to get a better look but then the door opens.

“Luke,” she whispers, but he doesn’t notice her, too intent at staring down at his sleeping nephew, but then his face changes, morphs into one of fear, anger. She reaches out - “don’t!” but Ben is turning, awake, alert, ready to block the overhead blow. Rey screams when the building comes down around them all. 

“Kriff,” she curses, needlessly brushing herself off. She’s standing on top of a pile of rubble now and turns in a quick circle. “Ben?” she calls, then rolls her eyes at herself, he can’t hear her or see her, she’s just a spectator. Rocks shift beneath her feet and she jumps down onto the field of grass. Ben emerges, bruised, coughing and crying, lightsaber clutched tightly in one hand, other arm held cradled to his chest.

She watches him stagger upright, and then practically tumble off of the pile down to where she is. His lips are moving, but he isn’t making a discernible sound as his wide eyes take in what she guesses was his home.

Rey knows how this plays out later, Luke is fine, buried under there, wants to tell Ben Luke will make it, to stop worrying, but then voices are carrying in their direction and she makes out the red light on R2’s dome.

“What have I done?” Ben whispers, head snapping around to see other students of Luke coming towards him, the direction of the noise and destruction that destroyed their slumber.

“Ben?” A boy asks, cautious, stepping out in front of the group. Rey watches as R2 wheels over, beeps at Ben and then begins to poke through the rubble.

“It was an accident,” he chokes out, “I didn’t mean, but he, and then-” Rey aches to be able to reach out and help in some way.

Rey watches the boy, he’s maybe her height, but so much younger than Ben is. Rey can see it in the softness of his face, the gangly lines of his arms, he’s still growing.

“An accident,” he scoffs. “You expect us to believe you dropped a building on Master Luke by accident.”

“He tried to kill me,” Ben whispers, and Rey watches the crowd of students shift, begin whispering amongst themselves and the boy rolls his eyes.

“You always were paranoid, Solo, it’s no wonder Master Luke was always keeping an extra eye on you. Surprised it took him this long to see what we all knew.”

“What?” Ben rasps, taking a step back while R2 makes a sad beeping noise.

Rey never gets to hear what else that boy might say because the temple on the hill explodes behind all of the students. Then the screaming starts. Rey watches horrified as more people stream from the burning building and then a ship lands in the field to the left.

She knows them, she realizes as she watches them all descend onto the grass, has seen them the very first time she truly connected to the Force on Takodana, next to her Ben inhales sharply. 

“No!” she calls out, rushing after the students who have turned away from Ben, going to join the others who were bracing themselves for combat with the newcomers. 

They are ruthless, Rey notices, watching them fight. All of them are armed with weapons she wasn’t expecting, and still, they easily outmatch the padawans. They’re toying with them, she realizes after a minute. Drawing them into combat, disengaging and then drawing them back in again and again. 

_When I came to, the temple was burning. He had vanished with a handful of my students, and slaughtered the rest._ She whirls around, looking at the rubble, willing Luke to wake up now, but nothing happens. R2 wheels over to Ben who is looking on helplessly at the destruction.

“Let him think it was me,” Ben tells the droid firmly and placing a hand on the crown of his dome for a long moment before running.

“Ben!” Rey shouts, following after him, “Ben, stop!”

He does. Everything around them becomes still, even the flames reaching up into the sky.

“I can’t,” he says, shoulders tense, and then slowly, he turns to face her. “It’s already happened. You can’t change it, Rey.”

“I know I can’t! I know, but you can.” The words hang between them in the stillness. She thinks of all the times he’s tried to change the course of their last meeting.

He’s so young, to look so haunted already. He’s in the clothes he slept in, white robes of a padawan, a Jedi, and his hair is shorter, she can see his ears and the resignation in his face.

“I have nowhere else to go,” he whispers, shoulders creeping up towards his ears. “Snoke, he told me, he knew this would happen, he told me to come to him, he would make it right. He’s all I have.”

“That isn’t true! You know it isn’t true!”

“I have to go with them, it’s what I always do.”

Sound returns, the roar of flames, screams cut short. Ben turns his back on her and she gives chase.

He doesn’t fight any of the students, not unless he has too, and only then he deftly defends himself and keeps going.

“You could stay!” she shouts from the bottom of the loading ramp of the ship. Around her the knights stalk past her, ready to go now that their target is on board. “Do you remember? When you told me I wasn’t alone?” she can hear how desperate she sounds, begging while the ramp begins to close. How funny that she should be on the other side of it now. “You don’t have to be alone either Ben Solo!”

The ship closes with finality, and it takes off into the air, leaving her behind amongst the dead. Everything around her is moving quickly. The students who are still alive assemble and give chase, and she’s still standing there alone when Luke finally emerges and takes in the macabre display left behind.

Being dumped from someone else’s dream is abrupt, Rey gasping into wakefulness in the predawn hours.

“Luke,” she croaks, throat feeling ragged. She hopes she didn’t scream out during the night. Hating the thought of interrupting everyone’s sleep. “Luke,” she tries again, louder, firmer, and waits. 

“Rey,” his voice is just the way she remembers it, “I was wondering when you were going to say something.”

Rey rolls her eyes, “as if you can’t just appear wherever you please.”

“I was trying to be polite,” he chides with a smile, before frowning, “something has happened.”

“I failed him too,” she says, hugging her knees to her chest, “I told you I wouldn’t and I did.”

“Maybe, at that moment, but I think you still have time.”

Rey laughs a little, a sad, almost wet sound and then she rests her cheek on her knees and sighs. “We’ve been sharing dreams, memories. Tonight I saw what happened that night.” Rey thinks, despite Luke only existing through the Force that she can hear his inhale of surprise. “He didn’t kill any of them.” Luke makes a noise, and attempt to interrupt and she brings her head up to glare at him. “He didn’t, and the others, they chased him, to avenge _you_.”

“No. They wouldn’t, that goes against everything I was teaching them.”

“I can prove it!” she says with a gasp, standing from the bed and darting out into the hall. “Wait here!”

It’s still so early, but R2 is easy to find and rouse, chirping away at her as they go back to her room. Luke is there waiting, and R2 gives a series of extremely happy beeps.

“R2,” she calls, shifting the droid’s attention back to her, “I want you to show me what happened that night at the temple.” A long series of protesting beeps, of how long he’s kept the secret, and it takes some wheedling, but eventually, the droid relents.

Rey isn’t sure if Force ghosts can cry, but Luke’s grief is tangible in her room.

“I don’t know what to say,” he says, finally breaking the silence.

“I don’t need you to say anything, I just wanted you to see, to know.”

“I need to go.” He blinks out of existence, leaving her and R2 alone.

“Thank you,” she eventually whispers to the droid. “We should see if the others are waking up.”

R2 beeps in agreement and they leave her room to find a flurry of activity on the base. She gets accused of sleeping in by Rose as they move into the hangar to assist with repairs. By the time they’re breaking for lunch, she can’t shake the weird feeling that’s settled in her gut.

It takes her ages to fall asleep that night, and this time, she’s somewhere new.

“Kef Bir,” Ben’s voice speaks up next to her, and she turns to find him staring down at the sea that stretches out below them.

“Kef Bir,” she echoes, eyes roving over the structure jutting from the waters. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Yes.” She can sense his restlessness beside her and she turns back to face him. “Rey, you were - last night-”

She nods. “I was there.”

“Do you still mean it?” he asks, hand reaching for hers.

She barely feels him make contact, a brush of cool skin on cool skin as she tells him, “Always.” 

Then he’s gone.

Weeks later, she goes alone and steps into another throne room. Empty, destroyed, a mess. He is there. His physical presence is more than she remembers, and the bond pulses between them as she slowly dismantles the walls she has built. If they have any hope of confronting what’s coming, they’ll have to do it - together.


End file.
